


between the shallows and the deep

by Moransroar



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pirate, Drowning, First Kiss, M/M, Near Death Experiences, POV Alternating, Pirates, Protective Peter Parker, Siren Peter Parker, Sirens, captain tony stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:28:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24304426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moransroar/pseuds/Moransroar
Summary: Tony looked on in bewilderment as one by one, his men gravitated toward the bow of the ship, staring out into the dark sea like they had caught sight of treasure at the bottom.It didn’t concern him as much as it should have, at first. The captain was just puzzled, until the first man climbed over the chains and plunged himself into the cold waters. And didn’t resurface.
Relationships: Peter Parker/Tony Stark
Comments: 4
Kudos: 171





	between the shallows and the deep

Tony looked on in bewilderment as one by one, his men gravitated toward the bow of the ship, staring out into the dark sea like they had caught sight of treasure at the bottom.

It didn’t concern him as much as it should have, at first. The captain was just puzzled, until the first man climbed over the chains and plunged himself into the cold waters. And didn’t resurface.

“What do you all think you’re doing? Get back to your posts!” He yelled from his position on the quarterdeck, but no one listened.

One by one, they climbed the railing, and dropped down, as if entranced. Tony rushed down to grab and shake the first man he could reach, but when he noticed his eyes were glazed over and he barely got a response out of him, it slowly starting to dawn on him what exactly was happening.

“Do you hear it?” The man whispered, almost conspiratorially.

Tony didn’t. But it confirmed his suspicions.

Sirens.

They had to get out of their territory, quickly, but with the rate at which his men were falling overboard, he soon had far too few crewmembers to be able to command the ship. And however hard the captain tried, he was unable to shake his people awake and get them to stop hearing the sirens’ song. It was of no use.

Tony had no time to contemplate why he didn’t hear anything himself, not even a single note. He knew he was next. And since sirens were ruthless, incorrigible and determined creatures, Tony knew that they would stop at nothing until the entire ship had been taken over, and every person on it had been dragged to the bottom of the ocean to suffocate and die.

Tony unsheathed his sword when the last man plunged to his death, and prepared for the worst.

Peter watched with satisfaction how body after body fell to the water, creating ripples and waves in the otherwise still surface. The pirates had been wrong to think these caves would make for a good place to dock and spend the night.

They had failed to see what lurked behind the rocks and between the coral and beneath the murky swirls of muddy water the ship’s arrival had caused.

Anyone who dared disturb their sleep was bound to face the consequences.

And oh, they faced them, alright. They faced them well.

Peter’s sisters sang their songs, twirling just beneath the surface, luring the filthy pirates in with sweet promises of lavish feasts and infinite riches and all the sex their oafish bodies could handle.

It always drew them in. Those butterfingered, half-witted, heavy-handed, simple-minded men.

But one human remained.

His sisters attempted a different song, a different frequency, a different pitch. But he remained on the deck in a defensive position, sword out and looking around him like he truly did think he was going to be able to protect himself with that.

Peter knew that it frustrated his sisters when they couldn’t manage to lure someone in, but it only made Peter giddy.

Because that’s where he came in.

Natasha swam up to him and put her arm around him, squeezing him in close with a big grin full of sharp teeth.

“Your turn, little brother,” she purred, “I think he’ll love what you have to offer.”

It wasn’t often that Peter got to sing. That was his sisters’ job, and they succeeded almost always, except for when they encountered the occasional man like the one still holding his ground.

But not for long.

Peter returned Natasha’s grin, and wiggled himself free of her grip to drift toward the surface. His sisters remained nearby, wanting to see if they had been correct about the last man standing or if they needed to take different measures to make sure the entire crew made it to the murky bottom of the sea, out of sight but definitely around.

Before Peter breached the surface, he opened his mouth and sang. 

What was that? Tony spun around at the initial sound of a soft voice nearby, somewhere in the water. It called to him, sweet and sultry, with promises of things he had previously never even been able to imagine having before.

He was still a pirate though, and greedy by default, and so the longer he listened the more tempted he became.

He imagined palaces at the bottom of the sea, whole worlds at his feet, the largest fleet of ships imaginable at his command and chambers full of gold at his disposal. He’d envisioned it before, had dreamt about it, yet he’d never seen it quite this clearly.

And then the young man by his side. Youthful and in his prime but cultivated, empowering and encouraging and absolutely stunning, and all his. He would never want for another person again, content with him by his side through everything, sharing his bed at night and waking up to him in the morning.

Tony had never thought he’d have that.

All the riches, all the ships and the gold and the manpower, he could all accumulate. If he tried his best and fought the hardest and had a good crew next to him, those were all achievable. But he had always known that he would never find a man willing to share his life with him a way a woman usually did.

Tony’s sword clattered to the wood beneath him, by his boots, and his feet moved as if on their own volition.

He wasn’t thinking anymore. Wasn’t trying to struggle. He looked into the water below and saw that stunning face he’d been dreaming of, just under the light ripple of the water. A hand extended toward him, and Tony climbed the chains, stood for a moment as he listened to the heart wrenching song for another beat, and then dove toward his new love.

Peter could hear his sisters chitter with excitement when the last remaining pirate climbed up onto the railing, about to let himself drop.

Peter reached a hand up through the surface, holding it out as if he meant to take the captain’s. Now, his sisters scattered. The pirate was about to jump, and that would be that. The whole crew at the bottom of the ocean. They could go back to sleep, and they’d have a sumptuous breakfast in the morning comprised of an abundance of men.

All Peter had to do, was lure the captain deeper and deeper into the water.

The man jumped, Peter backed up, and when he was finally next to him and the bubbles in the water disappeared, Peter could see him clearly at last.

The man had his eyes open, and his face was slack. He didn’t look like he was bothered by the fact that he only had a limited supply of oxygen trapped in his lungs, and that it would soon run out. He had dark hair that swirled around his head, dark brows, dark eyes boring into Peter’s. He was coming closer, and Peter abruptly remembered what they were doing. He held out his hand.

Of course the man took it. But when Peter took a beat too long in starting to tug him downward, once again too distracted, this time by the strange curve of the pirate’s mouth when it appeared that he was smiling at him, suddenly the pirate was close and there was a hand on Peter’s cheek.

He should have jerked away. Would have, if it hadn’t caught him by surprise. Or so he told himself, at least.

The pirate was pulling him closer, his thumb brushing slowly across Peter’s cheek. This had never happened before. Peter was always in control. He had to be. He got so very few victims, and they were so far in between, he took pride in the fact that he got one when he finally did. They never got the upper hand.

And they never kissed him.

Peter shot back an inch at the soft touch of lips to his own, watching the pirate with eyes like saucers.

The other man’s mouth opened, forming bubbles when he whispered to Peter, which would have been futile in the water if Peter’s hadn’t had the kind of hearing that he did.

“ _Please_ ,” the man said to him, eyes pleading.

Suddenly, Peter felt panicked. The bubbles that escaped the man’s mouth were the last few fractions of his oxygen, meaning that he was about to suffocate. Any moment now his lungs would start to protest so viciously that his body would automatically force him to take a deep breath, resulting in water entering his lungs.

He was going to die in seconds, and while that normally thrilled Peter, right now…

Right now it filled him with dread.

Tony had never seen a more beautiful man before.

And he’d seen quite a few in his lifetime.

The siren was even prettier up close.

The word left Tony’s lips before he could help himself, before he could think twice about it, and suddenly his lungs were straining. He was well aware of the fact that this would be the end of him, but he’d already lost his crew, lost his only way forward and away from the small island, and somewhere in the back of his mind he knew he was going to die the moment he hit the water.

Even before he did, he already knew.

Now, all he wanted was that kiss. It was all he’d ever wanted.

But his air was running out fast, and he could feel his consciousness slipping. His eyes were drifting shut already, his body starting to shake with the urge to breathe, but at least he saw the beautiful young man’s face one last time before his eyes closed and his body gave in.

Tony woke up sputtering, coughing up salty water, retching at the feeling it left in the back of his throat and his nostrils as the stuff came pouring out wherever it could. He turned onto his side so as not to choke on it, allowing it to spill out onto the flat rocks on which he realized he lay.

It took a minute to cough it all up, and still it felt like his lungs were swimming.

But he was no longer in the water.

Tony pushed himself up into a sitting position with some difficulty and took in his surroundings. It was dark, and he was sitting among large, black boulders, the mouth of an enormous cave looming over him. And in the distance was his ship, bobbing along gently with the tide, still docked and perfectly intact, but clearly void of a crew.

Had he dreamed it all and had he just somehow fallen overboard?

No. It couldn’t be.

Slowly, Tony became aware of the fact that there was a pair of eyes on him, watching him closely from the shadows nearby. He saw them glitter delicately in the reflection of the moon on the water just by his feet. They were stunning, but Tony knew that they could only belong to someone, or some _thing_ , that he needed to be desperately afraid of. Especially now that he couldn’t defend himself, since his sword lay abandoned in the middle of the ship’s empty deck.

And the gun in its holster at his hip wasn’t going to be of much use either. Except maybe if he used blunt force with the heavy barrel of it, but he was too out of breath to even think about fighting off a siren right now.

Besides, hadn’t this young man just…saved his life?

Before he could think too much about it, the creature was crawling closer, further into the light. His tail gleamed with what could easily appear as silver and gold below the surface of the water, fins sharp in contrast to the softness of his pretty face and warm eyes. He watched Tony with what he could only guess was an apprehensive kind of curiosity, as if he wanted to come closer but wasn’t sure if he should.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Tony promised, thinking maybe that might help.

“I’m not afraid of you,” the creature responded without missing a beat, and with a now determined set in his eyes he pushed himself up onto the rock on which Tony sat, and inspected him from up close.

“You saved my life,” Tony murmured, a little bit taken aback by just how close the stunning creature suddenly was, “Why?”

“You kissed me,” the other was once again quick to reply, “Why?”

Tony felt like he was being mocked, but how could he be offended by something like that when the siren looked at him with those large, doe eyes of his.

“Because I wanted to,” he admitted.

“Why?”

“Because I think you’re beautiful.”

“Why?”

Tony chuckled. It startled the siren, who flinched back, but only briefly.

“I don’t know. I just do.”

The young man seemed to mull that over for a minute, eyes narrowing but not viciously, only contemplating his next move. Tony didn’t mind that one bit, because it meant that he could look at the creature a little more in the meantime, admire him from up close the same way he’d wanted to do for much longer back in the water. He didn’t look any less enchanting than he had back there, and Tony was much more comfortable on dry land, too.

Perhaps a bit too comfortable in the presence of a siren who could easily sing that beautiful song of his again and drag his ass to Davy Jones’ locker after all.

But the stunning, young thing only reached for his hand, brought it up, and leaned his cheek into it. Just like back in the water.

“You don’t like females,” the creature murmured contemplatively.

Tony shook his head no.

“But you like me,” he continued.

Tony nodded his head yes. His face softened, and something in the siren’s expression changed.

“I’ve never met anyone quite like you.”

When Peter kissed the pirate captain again, hidden away from his siblings, he knew he was doing something forbidden. He told himself he was just trying something new, just testing the dark-haired man’s limits, seeing how far he could bend him until he broke. That was all.

But if his sisters found no captain for breakfast in the morning, and no Peter among the rocks they slept on, then it was hardly his fault.

For once in his life, the enchanter had become the enchanted, and there was nothing Peter could do to stop it.

As if he ever would.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for a request I got on Tumblr. [Come send me a prompt!](https://iloveyou3thousand.tumblr.com/)


End file.
